Manipulations of the commodity markets are not just about rich people losing money. Some manipulations hurt or kill the poorest of the poor. After our first documentary EUPOLY, we want to illuminate the dark spots in the commodity markets.

To cover the costs of the project we want to ask the community for support. Let’s make this documentary happen.

HOW YOU CAN HELP?

1. Back the Project: Kickstarter is all or nothing – if we don’t make our goal, we get nothing.

2. Spread the project: Even if you can’t donate, sharing the link with your family and friends does a world of difference in getting more people to contribute.

Risks and challenges

The biggest challenge for our film as in most documentary films is funding to complete and keep our momentum going. To meet the people for interviews we have to travel different countries. Kickstarter is an all or nothing platform, so we have to reach the goal we set. Because it is the second documentary project we know what we need to fund.

Kickstarter Rules

I checked the Kickstarter rules. If the required amount is not raised, the project is canceled and no money is collected.

Why is funding all-or-nothing?

All-or-nothing funding is a core part of Kickstarter and has a number of advantages:
It’s less risk for everyone. If a project doesn’t reach its funding goal, creators will not be expected to complete their project without the funds necessary to do so, and backers will not be charged.

It motivates. Adding a sense of urgency motivates your community to spread the word and rally behind your project.

It works. Of the projects that have reached 60% of their funding goal, 98% were successfully funded. We find that projects either realize and surpass their goal, or they never fully take off.

We all wish Jens Blecker and Thomas Schad best of luck with their endeavor.

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32 thoughts on “Commodity Futures Manipulation: How Bad Did It Get? Still Ongoing?”

Although I support this endeavor, I believe there are some very powerful people with very deep pockets who don’t have to worry about margin calls and want to keep things just the way they are. I just wonder how safe it is when some group starts an investigation into manipulation, which absolutely needs to happen. The deeper you dig the more dangerous it may become so that whoever leads this investigation, it seems to me, would have deep pockets for security purposes just to start with….Anonymous- don’t print this if it hurts this most necessary investigation

“How bad is commodity futures manipulation?..most readers would like an answer.”

Sounds like a film project for Michael Moore, entertainment with an agenda. Personally, I doubt that even an army of statisticians with PhDs could come up with a real answer. Though I like the topic, and hope they come up with an interesting film.

“The Futures: The Rise of the Speculator and the Origins of the World’s Biggest Markets” by Emily Lambert should be required reading if the topic is of interest. According to Lambert, there is only one commodity banned from futures trading by the USA Congress because of the possibilities for manipulation: green onions. Eggs, butter, cattle, grain, petrol, metals, no problem, but the banning of green onions make for a great story and should be part of the film along with Lambert.

“Silver Rule 7” – The US government made a rule that FDIC-insured banks were no longer allowed to lend money for commodity speculation. Additionally, COMEX stopped trading silver and CBOT doubled margin requirements.

Mish my previous remarks were overly dramatic not based on any inside information, just my own personal hunch or whatever. I apologize Mish and from now on will try to be more responsible in my remarks. Anonymous

“Sanders’ acknowledgment that the president ‘weighed in’ on his son’s statement is a departure from what Trump’s private lawyer said just a couple weeks ago. ‘I do want to be clear the president was NOT INVOLVED in the drafting of the statement,’ Jay Sekulow said during the July 16 edition of Meet the Press, emphasizing that the statement came from Trump Jr. and his lawyer without input from the president.”

disingenuous, superfluous and poorly researched. i don’t know how many of the folks who have posted here actually trade for a living.

i do, and i know dozens of retailers on whose giant and gracious shoulders i have learned that trading is a craft of lifelong excellence and perseverance. not the mainstream rhetoric that it gets reduced to in punchlines fit for a teleprompter on a tv screen

retail traders that treat it as a career know this manipulation mania is a shallow scream, a cover for the extreme and brutal darwinism that exits in the markets….that most cannot hack (and in the absence of proper education is expected)

i eat what i kill, so do those with much bigger pockets than me….if its manipulation, prove it empirically rather than scream out rhetoric.

sad that on a site where such educated and savvy readers exist, such a serious issue is trivialised and marginalised to the same two bit nonsense that exits on msm

disingenuous, superfluous and poorly researched. i don’t know how many of the folks who have posted here actually trade for a living.

i do, and i know dozens of retailers on whose giant and gracious shoulders i have learned that trading is a craft of lifelong excellence and perseverance. not the mainstream rhetoric that it gets reduced to in punchlines fit for a teleprompter on a tv screen

Hi Sandy, I may surprise you by responding instead of deleting your comment as many would do.

There is nothing disingenuous about my post at all. If you disagree point out where. As for poorly researched, Good grief! The stated thesis was to obtain research!

Manipulation is everywhere. I personally doubt that commodities manipulation is any worse than equities manipulation, but in the futures market major firms have admitted guilt.

As for trading, traders do not give a rat’s ass about manipulation, about fundamentals, about anything but price movement. Day trading is all about good entry and exit points on a technical basis.

You cannot deny manipulation when parties have agreed they do it!

That is does not affect traders is beside the point. No one said it did. At least I didn’t.

My personal opinion is stocks and futures eventually get to where they are going regardless of manipulation. But people have won lawsuits on the basis of manipulation.

Congratulations that it does not affect you. It does not affect me for a different reason: I do not believe it matters in the long end to investors.

actually mish, the comments were directed to the folks doing the kickstarter not to you.

I COMPLETELY AGREE with your response. there maybe manipulation to an extent and/ OR of a type not immediately apparent.

I would doubt very much that those folks, that are doing the kickstarter, would discover it, as it appears they are on a witchhunt

additionally, if one were to research the works of firms like Tradeworx (Narang is very forthcoming in the strengths and weaknesses of those types of firms) and also there is some (very little) good stuff on Steve Cohen’s firm the latter appears (only appears) to have at the favorable end of some sort of manipulation in its heyday, or at least (more likely) the beneficiary of rules built for them and there kind.

Almost all of them, after attempting to corner some market, through some super specialized strategy, eventually became victims of their own work or of a similar competitor. A manipulated market does that.

Whereas, common sense speculation, built on robust things tend to plod along, Unflashy, but relentlessly.

Finally, I rarely comment on forums, I am out of touch with how to make a decent point…please allow for me leaving out things that i should I said in the first place……….these discussions tend to get very long very quickly

@Sandy
I came late to this thread and don’t want to get into a long, involved comment. Suffice to say, I’ve been in the biz probably longer than have you and can support your comments. There is a religion about commodities market manipulation that exists because of peoples’ ignorance of commodities markets functions and the legislation that defines them.

As in many aspects of late-20th century/early-21st century reality, there is a general trend to excuse real events because of one’s inability to exercise reason. Bottom line: people in general, as they have done historically, lose money trading commodities when trading on margin. Nowadays, via public forums on the internet, they blame their mistakes on a superstitious phantom rather on their own mental shortcomings.

The real crime, one ignored by the
SEC, is that of front running. Simply put, hundreds or thousands of orders are placed without the intent of being acted upon. By allowing such orders to be placed and then revoked prior to completion (acceptance), one can discover and direct the price of a stock either up or down to a desired new price. In the old days we used to call it whitewashing or the trading of securities between or among partners until prices either rose or fell to the desired level. To defeat this practice, all orders placed should have a minimum duration of say one minute before being revoked. High Frequency Trading is just another scam or con game.

Oh really, how so? High Frequency Trading has been on a number of websites such as Zero Hedge among many since 2009. It has been known as a problem and discussed by a few “experts” and declared to be a real problem. So what did I miss? Why don’t you inform me of your knowledge on the subject so I can be enlightened.

Decimalization and HFT are two of the best things to ever happen to the retail investor. Unless of course you miss 1/4 of a dollar wide markets and specialists front running the shite out of you every time you try and move more than 10,000 shares. Ahhh those were the good old days…. How I hate penny wide markets for tens of thousands of shares. I only miss more, those thousand dollar commissions (each way) to transact 1,000 shares.

Honestly, I’ve never seen one article ever explaining any of it correctly. No reason to do it here. Plus I want lunch.

it may become so that whoever leads this investigation, it seems to me, would have deep pockets for security purposes just to start with….Anonymous- don’t print this if it hurts this most necessary investigation…

The “kickstarter campaign” sounds like yet another dim-wiitted witch hunt — great for lining the pockets of the film producers. There is a reason why Michael Moore is a millionaire and the people who watch his films are still poor.

Is there some manipulation in commodity markets? That is like asking if the Fed spends 24/7 manipulating interest rate markets.

Does faceplant manipulate puppets, oops “users”, into giving info for free — which faceplant then sells to advertisers for profit? Do unions always say a job that can be done with 2 guys actually “requires” 5 guys plus a supervisor?

How naive and academic (aka out of touch with the real world) does one have to be to even ask these questions?

The second time I agree with one of your posts! Someone needs to define manipulation. If I am doing something that is in my personal best interests financially, tell me why that is wrong. If I happen to have more money and information that someone else, well, life sucks for you!

Angelo Mozillo, Bruce Karatz and the Toll brothers did what was financially financially good for them. They sold some $400,000 worth of stock, each, at the top of the housing market. They all had inside information that the average shareholder did not.

Jim Cramer told the public that he would never sell Toll Brothers because it was a land bank. What % did the land bank stock drop?

UBS had a strong buy recommendation on ENRON until 4 days before it filed for bankruptcy. The price had fallen from 60 dollars.

Speaking of UBS, several years ago, it and at least 6 other brokerage analysts put a simultaneous buy recommendation on GOOG as it went into double top resistance. The price dropped some 70 dollars over the next month or so.

Why would anyone trust their hard earned money to any of these shysters? Is there anyone on Wall Street telling the truth? Heck, didn’t Trump just dump a regulation that says financial analysts have to work in the fiduciary interests of their clients? That action alone should tell everyone that blatant manipulation is not only legal but encouraged.

C’mon, if you think you can trust anyone other than your mother to have your best interests at heart then you are going to be fleeced.

@Jon Sellers — I never said anything about defining manipulation. that’s your problem.

I said these film makers are con artists, preying on the children that went to Berkley and learned how to be victims (and it only cost them $65K per year to “learn”!!!)

Michael Moore made millions off these victims. Al Gore flies around the world on a private jet (spewing carbon global warming into “his” atmosphere) and makes millions off these victims.

And now some enterprising con artists are fleecing the free sh!t army using kick starter.

I said the Fed manipulates interest rates constantly, often in cahoots with the bankers they regulate. Congress manipulates socialists like yourself into believing national parks can’t open unless some federal employees are present to charge an entry fee.

And your beloved moonbeam governor has manipulated you into thinking you can tax yourself into prosperity, censor political opinions you don’t agree with and call it tolerance, and force your opinions on people who never even asked what you think.

I am saying the most racially segregated city in the entire USA is San Fransisco — “liberal” capital that it purports to be.

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